Keanu Reeves: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. Jonathan Harker - Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

There's an awful lot to like about Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula: the lavish Gothic sets, its general fidelity to the novel, Gary Oldman's brilliant central performance and so on. It's a wonderfully bonkers offering which remains one of the high points of the 1990s vampire wave that also included the likes of Cronos, Innocent Blood and Interview With The Vampire. But like its titular character, it has one huge Achilles' heel: Keanu Reeves' disastrous turn as Jonathan Harker. Harker is one of the central characters of Bram Stoker's novel. He first encounters Dracula as a trainee solicitor, having travelled to Transylvania on behalf of a client, been imprisoned in Dracula's castle and barely managing to escape with his life. Upon marrying his fiancée Mina and returning to London, he encounters Dracula again and vows to destroy the vampire who comes to prey upon his wife, enlisting Van Helsing to help him in the act. Many American actors have come a cropper with English accents, but none moreso than Reeves. Every line is delivered as though he is still figuring out how each word should be pronounced, resulting in a performance which is stunted, unconvincing and emotionally drab. The shaving scene, one of the most famous in the novel, is rendered inert by Reeves' inability to respond either to the props or to Oldman's deliciously hammy Dracula. It almost ruins a really great film, and deserves pride of place as his worst performance. Disagree with the choices? Drop me a comment down below.